THE BIBLE NARRATIVE AND HEATHEN TRADITIONS. 13 



periods of the Bible chronology; that from Adam to Noah being the first, that 

 from Noah to Abraham the second, that from Abraham to the death of Jacob 

 the third, and that of the exile in Egypt the fourth. 



Max Miiller, in commenting on this view, while often doubting the conclu- 

 sions of Dr. Speigel, yet shows the coincidences which may be found between 

 these records in the Zend Avesta and the corresponding account in the still older 

 book of the Hindoos, the Vedas. 



The account of the temptation and the fall, the tree and the serpent, he 

 acknowledges to be found both in the Avesta and the Vedas, but he maintains 

 that the dualism of the Avesta, the struggle between Ormuzd and Ahriman, or 

 the principles of light and darkness, is to be considered as the distant reflex of 

 the grand struggle between Indra, the God of the sky, and Vitra, the demon of 

 night and darkness, which form the constant burden of the hymns of the Rig 

 Veda. He says, " neither in the Veda or in the Avesta does the serpent assume 

 that "subtile and insinuating form which it does in Genesis. * * * But the 

 serpent that beguiled Eve seems hardly to invite comparison with the much 

 grander conception of the terrible power of Vrita and Ahriman in the Veda and 

 Avesta. He says, also, " We likewise consider the comparison of the cherubim 

 who keep the way of the tree of life, and the guardians of the Soma in the Veda 

 and Avesta, as worthy of attention, and we should like to see the etymological 

 derivation of the word cherubim, from the Greek word, gryphes, Greifen, and of 

 seraphim, from the Sanscrit, sarpa, serpents, either confirmed or refuted." So, 

 too, of the deluge he says : " It is not mentioned in the sacred writings of the 

 Zoroastrians nor in the Rig Veda, but it is mentioned in the later Brahmans and 

 the arguments of Burnouf, who considered the tradition of the deluge as borrowed 

 from Semitic neighbors seems to us to be strengthened rather than weakened." 



Fifty years ago the sacred books of three of the most important religions of 

 the world were not known. It is said that Brahmanism claims for its adherents 

 thirty-one per cent 'of the population of the globe 



The sacred books of the Brahmans, the Buddhists and the Magians or disci- 

 ples of Zoroaster have only become known since the knowledge of the Sanscrit 

 has furnished a key to their translation. The discovery of these coincidences 

 between the ancient writings of the Eastern nations and the Bible is most remark- 

 able. "There is a high degree of interest attaching to their antiquity, for we 

 seem to have not only the beginning of history but also the beginnings of intellec- 

 tual life and of religious thought." 



But leaving these sacred books of the East and their coincidences, we pass 

 to the accounts of the same facts among the Western nations. Here we are met 

 at the outset with the familiar myths of the Greeks, of the garden of the Hespe- 

 rides with its fabled tree which bore the golden fruit, and of the dog Cerberus 

 who guarded the tree, and it does not seem difficult to imagine that this was only 

 another version of the same old story. The deluge of Ogyges and of Deucalion 

 also remind us of the same story of the flood. Gladstone says, " Many elements 



